Norwegian woman jailed for 16 months in Dubai for reporting being raped
Under the Sharia-influenced laws, she was jailed on suspicion of having had sex outside marriage
Dubai : A 25-year-old Norwegian woman has been awarded a 16-month jail sentence in Dubai after she told the local cops that she had been raped, a Daily Mail report said.
The woman was on a business trip to Dubai when she was sexually assaulted. She reported the traumatic incident to the local police, but instead of helping her, the cops confiscated her passport and threw her in jail on the suspicion of having sex outside marriage.
The woman has ben charged with having sex outside marriage, drinking alcohol without a license, and perjury.
She is likely to be sentenced later this week, but for now is living under the protection of the Norwegian Sailor’s Church in Dubai. The intervention of the woman’s family and some tough negotiations by the Norwegian consulate in Dubai made this possible.
Foreigners jailed in Dubai are deported immediately after their sentence runs its course. However, as Norway and the United Arab Emirates have no extradition treaty so it is not quite clear what the future of the woman will be.
According to the Sharia-based laws of the UAE, a rapist can only be convicted if he himself confesses to the crime or if there are four adult, male Muslim witnesses who can provide evidence that the sex was non-consensual.
Under these strict Islamic laws, sex before or outside marriage is totally forbidden. An unmarried couple can be jailed even for holding hands in public.
This, however, is not an isolated case. A few months ago, an Australian woman too spoke out about how she had been sentenced to 8 months in jail in Dubai after she told the police she had been gang-raped by her own colleagues.
This lady was working with a hotel chain in Dubai where three members of the hotel staff spiked her drink and raped her. Battered and bruised, when she took herself to the hospital for treatment, she was handed over to the police, who refused to believe she had been raped and put her in jail for indulging in sex outside marriage.
~ Yahoo! India News
